DEEP RIVER, Conn. (AP) — Friends say a Connecticut woman killed the day after Christmas had worried about her troubled son not taking his psychiatric medications and had thought he needed to be hospitalized.

But Margaret Rohner also missed her only child and agreed to let him come to her home in Deep River to open presents and spend the night.

The 45-year-old ended up being attacked with a fireplace poker and knife. Her 23-year-old son, Robert O. Rankin, has been charged with her murder.

Friends say Rohner spent four years trying to find appropriate mental health care for Bobby, shepherding him through numerous hospitalizations and changing medications and physicians.

The case highlights many of the issues surrounding mental health services that state lawmakers have been wrestling with since the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.